Uptown Boom 2013 vs 2006

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Since I have a ton of work to get done I thought I might procrastinate and start a pointless thread....

With the recent flurry of announcements and premonitions I started to wonder about how our current boom uptown compares to the development we saw during the bubble era. My memory is shaky but I would guesstimate the bubble era to be the 2005-2008 time period.

Back then we saw a flurry of condo towers (Avenue, Catalyst, Vue and others), a few low rise projects (Quarterside, and the Southend projects (Circle, Millennium, Ashton), office space (new BoA glass box, NASCAR and the Power Tower) and then recreational projects like the Epicenter the Arena (did it open in 2005?) and the HOF.

Fast forwarding to today we have a bit less emphasis on office space (The Crescent project), but a greater emphasis on residential (the two ballpark midrises, Skyhouse plus all the Southend apartments down to New Bern) and the potential for more emphasis on recreational / livability projects (ballpark, Bearden park, 1st Ward park (???) and what sounds like a significant retail component to the Crescent project. Throw in a few new hotels (SKYE, Ballpark and possibly Crescent) and we have a very active urban environment. The stuff being built in this wave has much more appeal to me than the structures of the bubble era, the ballpark, Bearden Park and new retail will make me spend significantly more time and money uptown.

A couple of projects span both-eras: SKYE condos and the BLE.

So what do you all think?

Is the current wave of development in downtown and Southend at all comparable to the bubble era?

Do you think the current mix of projects will bring significantly more locals uptown?

What holes still need to be filled to make uptown more functional for locals and tourists alike?

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I agree with the characterization of this as a healthy growth spurt and an overall more organic boom of mostly necessity projects. My only disappointment vs. the 05-08 boom is the excessive value-engineering and dumbing-down of a lot of previously more exciting projects. It is obviously harder to get retail included, and we've seen some pretty uninspired residential in Southend in particular. I think on the retail/mixed-use front things are starting to turn back around, with Skyhouse having a large amount of retail where we didn't necessarily expect it, and the Crescent project obviously worth getting excited over. I just think we have allowed our expectations for quality execution, especially in residential, dip a little bit in the excitement to get anything off the ground.

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Anyone with some skill in rendering want to try to give us an idea of what Charlotte will look like if all these projects go through??

Still waiting on some project renderings for a few more projects, I may get back into working on my old renderings again. Six years later, I'm pretty out of practice though. Maybe someone else is keeping these maps current?

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Once again, ah, thanks. I agree with the infill-boom assessment, and personally the only thing of importance IMO. Retail is secondary, residents must come first, with their eventual demands for retail, otherwise vacancy, present already, only worsens. Lets hope Levine doesn't permanently stunt growth northwards, there are a lot of opportunities immediately north of the loop with great views, he just has to provide the "link". AHole.

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I think this boom is different from 2006 in that we're not seeing these insane projects. There are no mega 70+ story proposals, followed by multiple 40 and 50 story condo high rises proposals. Even in the boom times back then, it was questionable how many of those projects were sustainable for a metro our size. Of course we all found out later what the answer to that question was. This boom seems to be more responsible to me (so far). Lots of more midrange, infill type stuff. You have several ~25 story apartment towers to fulfill a need where apartment vacancy is a borderline anemic 4-5%. We have one proposal from Crescent that is yet to be announced, but by all indications won't be a mega-Trump type deal. Uptown office vacancy is now under 10%, which is considered healthy, so this project would make sense. Especially since it will take a few years to build out. So far, this is all reasonable to me.